


Easier

by PompousPickle



Category: Kamen Rider Build
Genre: Gen, Mii-tan is a coping mechanism, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-18
Updated: 2018-02-18
Packaged: 2019-03-20 14:57:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13720089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PompousPickle/pseuds/PompousPickle
Summary: In the week before the proxy battle, nothing was simple, and nothing was cut-and-dry. Being Mii-tan helped though, just a little bit.





	Easier

Mii-tan made everything a little bit easier.

“Hello! It’s that time again! Everyone’s super-excited, extra-happy, ultra-peppy idol…” Misora spun around in a circle, building up tension in her voice before striking a pose at the camera. “Mii-taaaan!”

From behind the camera, Sawa gave her a thumbs-up and an encouraging smile. She was the one who insisted that Misora do this episode. She had been hesitant at first, but Sawa had explained it. Her fans needed hope. They needed to know that there was something left to keep living for. Something to keep fighting for. They needed to know that Mii-tan was okay, and looking out for them.

The money was also nice, of course.

Mii-tan struck another pose before laughing. It was so easy to slip away this way, to forget everything that was happening. It was exhausting, expending this much energy when there was a war still raging on. But there was a part of Misora that needed it. Thrived on it. After all, it’s all that got her through when she was in hiding. Down in this basement with nothing to do, wasting her days away.

Back then, it was just her, her father, and a cell-phone camera. They were goofing around, telling jokes, and having fun. It made things better. It made her feel like she was capable, bright, excited.

Wanted.

Loved.

“Hello everybody!! I know that things have been really really hard out there. No matter where you are, no matter where you go. Whether it’s Touto, Hokuto, or Seito, it seems like all these horrible yucky things want to follow you around like a terrible raincloud.”

It was childish, but the words rang true.

“It seems like no one out there is listening to you.”

She thought of innocent men, women and children, displaced from their homes from Hokuto troops.

“It seems like anyone who can help is too busy focusing on themselves, and their own desire for power.”

She thought of Sawatari and his men, just tools of war for Hokuto to use as they saw fit.

“Sometimes it feels like the world is ending all around you.”

She thought about Sento, running off for long periods of a time and coming back battered and bruised, refusing to tell the other three where he went.

“Sometimes it feels like there is nothing you can do.”

She glanced over at Banjou, trying not to let her smile slip as she looked at him. He was doing pushups in a corner, steaming. He looked over at her, faltering in his exercises as their gaze met. She turned back to the camera, aware of how his eyes bore into her, still propped up on his arms.

“But that’s not true!” She finally finished with a long breath, eyes pleading with the camera. “We still have each other. It may sound silly sometimes, but as long as we have someone left to fight for, we can always keep fighting!” She made a few punching motions with her fist, giggling a little at her own actions. “And as long as we keep fighting, hope will always stay alive!” She glanced over at Banjou again, who returned to his pushups, staring resolutely at the ground.

But Misora didn’t miss the tiny smile on his lips as he did so.

 

\---

 

Sawatari looked up from his phone, over at Kiba and Akaba. No, Masaru and Syoukichi. He was tired of pretending he didn’t remember them. He was tired of pretending he didn’t care about them. His hands hadn’t stopped shaking in over a week and a half now and he couldn’t pretend he didn’t care anymore. He could lie to them, but he couldn’t keep lying to himself and insisting that it didn’t bother him.

“So look around,” Mii-tan’s voice rang out from his phone, and he turned back to the idol. He spun around in the barber chair, deliberately facing away from his Crows, holding the phone as close to his face as he could. “Look around at your neighbors, family and friends and reach out your hand. Reach out your hand and when things get rough, I’m sure there will be a hand reaching back.”

The idol clasped her two hands and held them to her heart. Almost on instinct, Kazumi grabbed his dog tags, feeling Syuuya’s name between his palms. It felt warm, somehow. His hands were still trembling, but it felt closer to the passion and fire that he was used to. It wasn’t fear anymore. It was resolution.

He wasn’t done. Not by a long shot.

 

\--- 

 

“As long as we still have each other, and we always have love in our hearts, then we will always emerge from war victorious.” Mii-tan said with an affirming nod, smiling ear from ear. Sento leaned against the stone structure, staring up at the sky as the sun began to fall. He’d have to be back at Nascita soon, before the others started to worry about him.

They were probably already worried about him.

He couldn’t tell them though. Not yet. He couldn’t bear to tell them the truth. That he didn’t want to see Banjou suffer for his sake anymore. That he managed to procure both Hokuto and Seito’s bottles. That he was off training day after day, only to still likely lose when the proxy battle finally arrived. That he was so desperate that he would reach out to…

“Ah? Watching Mii-tan, eh?” Souichi’s voice rang out from behind him, hands in his pocket and leaning over Sento’s figure. The physicist straightened himself out, narrowing his eyes before Soichi held out his hands in defense, his smile never wavering from his face. “She’s still so cute. This really brings back memories,” he let out a long sigh. It could have been wistful, if Sento didn’t know better.

But he did know better, he reminded himself.

Misora went on, telling her viewers about various refugee camps and relief groups that people could donate to. She pleaded with the audience, with those big doe eyes of hers, to give just a little to others in times of need. Sento couldn’t take his eyes off of the man who dared to call himself her father.

“I invented Mii-tan, you know,” Soichi said, and the rest of the statement was left unspoken. He created Mii-tan. He created Sento Kiryuu. He created all this. And he could take it all away just as easily. “Giving Misora something to do distracted her. Made her less miserable and tired all the time. She was going to be a mascot, actually.” Another wistful sigh, as though Sento had destroyed something precious to Soichi, had taken it away. “Someone who could really rally the people behind Build.” He struck a pose, putting a peace sign to his face with a little wink.

On the screen, Misora did the same pose, with a smile that almost looked genuine, despite all the misery around her. All the misery and all the destroyed trust. All the people running around behind her back. Sento tried not to linger on it.

“Pretty good plan, right?”

Sento rolled his eyes and pulled out two of Seito’s bottles, rolling back his shoulders. He motioned towards Soichi’s gun, silently asking the man to get on with it, to transform into Stalk and end this sad little charade of comradery. Soichi just shrugged with his ever-present grin.

Mii-tan was still talking.

“And even when it feels like you have no one at all, that’s not true. You have me.”

Something in her voice sounded raw, sounded personal. It rung out in Sento’s ears.

“You have _us_.”

Without breaking eye-contact with Stalk, Sento slid the bottles into the belt.

 


End file.
